The present invention relates to volume scanning. In particular, medical diagnostic ultrasound data representing a cyclically moving objection is aligned spatially and temporally for volume rendering. The alignment creates data representing a volume at different times.
The heart of a patient may be imaged with ultrasound. The images may be three-dimensional representations displayed as a sequence. Since the heart changes shape, size, and/or position during the heart cycle, the sequence shows the heart at different phases during the heart cycle.
The data for volume imaging is acquired at different portions of the heart cycle. The heart phase associated with acquired data is used to align the data temporally. Data associated with different spatial locations at a same portion of the heart phase are grouped to form a volume.
The heart phase is determined using ECG triggering. The ECG reading identifies the heart phase associated with each acquisition. However, ECG triggering uses a separate ECG sensor or leads, leading to inconvenience. ECG may not be available for fetal hearts.
Cyclical timing may be determined from ultrasound data. One technique for volume scanning a moving object, such as the heart, uses variation in B-mode intensity or frequency analysis of the data to determine the heart cycle. The scan positions continually change during acquisition. Data is collected for different portions of the heart cycle. The coordination between cycle phase and spatial position may be difficult. Insufficient data may be accumulated for representing complete volumes at different phases of the heart cycle.